Incidence of Late Term Abortions

The Canadian Medical Association’s abortion policy defines abortion as the active termination of a pregnancy up to 20 weeks of gestation (Canadian Medical Association, Policy on Induced Abortion, 1988). 90% of abortions in Canada are performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and just over 9% of abortions take place between 12 and 20 weeks of gestation. A mere 0.4% of abortions take place after 20 weeks of gestation. These are considered late term abortions.

…However, most of the very small number of abortions performed over 20 weeks gestation in Canada are done to protect the woman’s physical health, or because of serious fetal abnormalities.

If “most” abortions are done for reasons of the woman’s health or a serious fetal abnormality, then it follows that “some” of the late term abortions must be performed for other reasons. For some reason, this pro-choice paper does not give that data.